Goa Tourism holds roadshow in TN

Times of India | 1 week ago | 01-10-2022 | 04:57 am

Goa Tourism holds roadshow in TN

Panaji: After evoking a good response to three Goa@60-themed roadshows held at Ahmedabad, Udaipur and Varanasi in North India, the Goa government’s fourth roadshow commenced at Madurai, the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu, on Friday.Inaugurating the event, director of Goa Tourism Nikhil Desai said the roadshows are primarily aimed at showcasing the “numerous and spectacular progress” made by the state government in various sectors and also to enhance tourism activities.Desai said to increase footfalls and flow of tourists, including domestic and foreign nationals, roadshows have been organised at various locations in the country. He urged the people from Tamil Nadu to visit Goa and further said that “Goa is very vibrant, endowed with natural and scenic beauty”. Among those present for the inaugurtion were S M Sribalamurugan, district tourist officer, department of tourism, Tamil Nadu; Deepak Narvekar, deputy general manager and PRO Goa Tourism along with Prakash Naik, information officer, Shyam Gaonkar, assistant information officer, department of information and publicity, and Prasad Kavlekar, manager, marketing, tourism department.

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IIT Mandi start up to launch world’s first giant swing backed by AI in Manali
The Indian Express | 18 hours ago | 09-10-2022 | 05:40 pm
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18 hours ago | 09-10-2022 | 05:40 pm

Come January, tourists in Manali will be able to get adrenaline rush riding a giant swing backed by Artificial Intelligence (AI), which has been built by a start up incubated at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mandi and is claimed to be the first-of-its kind in the world.Founded by four childhood adventure enthusiast friends who are engineers and certified rock climbers and mountaineers, the start up called ‘ManaliSwing’, has completed its human jump trials and is in process of filing five patents for the concept and design.The team claims it has already been approached by Dubai government to launch the swing in the country and is in conversation with interested agencies in Switzerland too.“We will offer one of the world’s most creative and safe giant swing like bungy jumping but instead of going down on rubber bungy cord, here one freefall followed by giant swing on dual dynamic ropes with over 100 possible jump styles allowing one to experience the adrenaline of 70m free fall with AI promising impeccable safety like never before,” Utsav Soni, one of the founders, told PTI.“The plan is to launch in Manali on new year. The tourists will have to pay Rs 3,000 for each jump. The cost will include transportation from a certain point and professional photography and videography service,” he added.The start up conducted a full-scale trial of 1,000 dummy jumps followed by successful Human Jumps under the special presence of IRATA experts at IIT Hyderabad.“The AI will also help track participants and jump master’s performance across millions of data points and deliver optimized approvals for jumping. Having a really intelligent AI will be an edge for a Jump Master and his team making sure no injury, incident, or causality can happen on the site. For example, AI will not approve the jump if there is anything wrong with the followed jump protocol or international standards.“This will be one of the best intersections of technology, innovation and adventure sport of this decade which has potential to disrupt the whole adventure tourism industry. The good part is that we don’t need to have some special hi-tech cameras and expensive setups to do this. This can be franchised anywhere in the world with an existing standard hi-res CCTV security camera feed,” he added.The team has plans to launch the second similar swing in Goa and then take the technology to other countries.“India, despite been world’s youngest country with 50 per cent population below 25, stands at 96th position in global Adventure Tourism Competitive Index (ATDI) 2020. That too is consistently decreasing since last 4 years. India ranks much lower than its neighbours, Bhutan (14th), and Nepal (67th). Especially, when there is a 178 per cent increase in demand of adventure activity in last 3 years.“Somewhere, India has failed to cultivate the culture of innovation in extreme adventure tourism. It’s Incredible India but not innovative India in terms of adventure tourism compared to its global potential. We already have been approached by Dubai government and talks are on at Switzerland too but plan is to launch in India first,” Soni said.The project which was conceptualised five years back was commercially registered last year as a start up. “We approached IIT Mandi with the idea and three months later we were an incorporated company with firs working prototype,” he added.

IIT Mandi start up to launch world’s first giant swing backed by AI in Manali
Reconsider assent to Municipalities Act ordinance: GFP to guv
Times of India | 1 day ago | 09-10-2022 | 04:30 am
Times of India
1 day ago | 09-10-2022 | 04:30 am

Panaji: The amendments to section 52 of the Goa Municipalities Act require the President’s sanction as the ordinance tampers with the functioning of municipal bodies which are protected under Part IX A of the Constitution, said Goa Forward Party on Saturday. GFP, which led a delegation of three political parties, met with Goa governor P S Sreedharan Pillai and urged him to reconsider the assent granted to the ordinance. GFP president Vijai Sardesai met Pillai at Raj Bhavan, where he also presented a memorandum highlighting the opposition’s concerns about the ordinance that has been passed in hurriedly.“The hurried manner in which the government went about bringing in the amendment through the ordinance route is deplorable as being inconsistent with Article 213 of the Constitution. In this particular case, it appears that the office of the Raj Bhavan has failed to place proper facts,” said Sardesai. The delegation informed the governor that the ordinance is a direct assault on the functioning of the legislature as the law-making body in the state. The memorandum cites several Supreme Court orders that said that an ordinance could be challenged if ‘immediate action’ was not required and if an ordinance has been issued primarily to bypass debate and discussion in the legislature. “It is well known to all that the origin of the thought to amend the Goa Municipalities Act came to the fickle mind of this government as a result of the fallout of the developments in the Margao Municipal Council recently,” said Sardesai.

Reconsider assent to Municipalities Act ordinance: GFP to guv